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BO: What the Unearthed 1995 Video Tells Us About Obama
Jack Cashill / American Thinker
A professionally shot video of Barack Obama from 1995 has recently surfaced. Shot at the Cambridge, Mass. Public Library, the video captures a skinny, youthful Obama promoting his then newly released memoir, Dreams from My Father.
In this hour-long presentation, Obama openly talks about his relationship with his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist and pornographer. Perhaps more importantly, Obama gives us a much clearer picture of who he was in 1995, on the cusp of his political career, than we had seen before. Some observations:
The Obama of 1995 was not a very good speaker. He had a halting delivery, stuttered, was obviously nervous, and, although congenial enough, could not tell a joke. What Obama did do well was read. He read a dramatic passage from his book for a full fifteen minutes uninterrupted and used multiple voices halfway credibly.
Over the years, Obama’s handlers have exploited his ability to read and sheltered him as far as possible from impromptu speaking. Had Obama’s teleprompter malfunctioned during his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he would not be president today. He has always depended on the eloquence of others, and he still cannot tell a joke.
The Obama of 1995 was not a firebrand, at least not on the surface. He presented himself to the small, roughly half-black Cambridge audience as an optimistic, easy-going liberal. In the question-and-answer session, he distinguished himself from the more obviously angry black professor Cornel West. “Cornel West has to go back to his Bible. Got to have faith,” said Obama in a black accent almost as cringe-inducing as the one Hillary rolls out on occasion. In fact, Obama turned that accent on throughout the presentation, especially when answering questions from black women.
Obama’s allusion to the Bible was purely metaphoric. He made no reference to his much bruited Christian faith. He made no reference to Islam, either. Despite his concession that white Americans were “basically decent,” Obama did not think they were “making a serious effort” to compensate for the “brutal experience” of black history. That “was going to cost some money,” and, according to Obama, “Americans don’t like to sacrifice.”
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